The Marian Martyrs (2): Holinshed’s Chronicles

Whilst referring to Foxe for a more detailed account of the proceedings the 1577 and 1587 editions of Holinsheds chronicles record the same information that on April 10^th Ridley and Latimer were taken to Windsor then the University of Oxford for dispute with the divines and learned men still remaining.  Two days later they were taken to Convocation at St Paul’s Church (Holinshed, 1557: v. 4, p. 1719; 1587: v. 6, p.1102).

The Burning of Latimer and Ridley (taken from John Foxe Acts and Monuments)

In the 1587 edition of Holinshed, Ridley and Latimer are referenced briefly soon after the account of Lady Jane and Northumberland’s failed plot (and their subsequent execution) and amid the account of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s trial and execution.  The protestant prisoners are not again mentioned until after a discourse on the marriage of Mary to Philip of Spain and of the belief that the queen was with child:

‘about this season diverse learned men being apprehended, and in prison for matters of religion, were brought before the bishops of Winchester and London, and other the bishops and commissioners appointed therefore: who upon the constant standing of the said learned men in their opinions, which they had taken upon them to maintain, as grounded upon the true word of God, as they protested, proceeded in judgement against them, and so diverse of them were burned at London in Smithfield, and in diverse other places’ (Holinshed, 1577: v. 4, p. 1719; 1587, v. 6, p. 1125). 

Interestingly in the 1587 edition was added:

‘Nay not only by fire but by other torments were the good Christians persecuted, whose zeal was hot in religion and defiance of the pope: insomuch that then he was counted Gods enemy, which took not the pope for the friend of Christ (whom he hated with hostility) as C.O. noted very truly in his Elizabetha, saying:
- nam creditor hostisEsse Dei, papa […] si quis pius asserit hostemEsse Dei, verso Christi qui tollit honores.’

(Holinshed, 1583: v.  4, p. 1719).

The reign of Mary in Holinshed is greatly enlarged between the two editions, however those elements taken from Foxe on the Marian martyrs remains largely unchanged (apart from what I have already mentioned).  Latimer and Ridley eventually get their trial and execution on page 1129 of the 1587 edition: ‘they were condemned, and after burned in the town ditch at Oxford the sixteenth day of October.  In the time of whose examinations, because the bishops aforesaid declared themselves to be the popes commissioners, neither Ridley nor Latimer would do them any reverence, but kept their caps on their heads.’ (Holinshed: 1577, v. 4, p.   1719; 1587, v. 6 p. 1129)

Thomas Cranmer is also afforded space in Holinshed being ‘burned in the same place where Ridley and Latimer before had suffered’ (Holinshed: 1587, v. 6, p. 1131).  Cranmer, of course, was a propaganda disaster for both Mary’s government and the protestant memorialists in the Rhineland.  Mary’s bishops had managed to gain a recantation from Cranmer only for him to later subside back to his old beliefs again.  In the end Cranmer’s death could be used better by protestant propogandists as he did manage to die well:

‘His shirt was made long down to his feet; his feet were bare.  Likewise his head, when both his caps were off, was so bare, that one hair could not be seen upon it.  His beard was long and thick, covering his face with marvellous gravity.  Such a contenance of gravity moved the hearts both of his friends and of his enemies.  And as for the recantation aforesaid, with many tears he protested, that he had subscribed to the same against his conscience, only for fear of death, and hope of life.  Which seemed true: for when he came to the stake, and the fire kindled, he put his right hand into the fire, and held it there a good space, saying: that the same hand should first burn, because it held the pen to subscribe against his Lord God.’ (Holinshed: 1587, v. 6, p. 1131).

The Marian Martyrs (1): John Foxe

When Mary I came to the throne in England it was not long until she began to act against the more radical reformers.  Many of high and low birth were burnt as heretics whilst others fled the country for the Rhineland.  The evangelical historian and martyrologist John Foxe, famed for writing his Book of Martyrs during the subsequent reign of Elizabeth I provides us with our most vivid descriptions of these events. 

John Bradford and John Leafe, for instance, ‘ended theyr mortall liues, moste likest two Lambes, without any alteration of their countenaunce, being voyde of all feare’.   John Philpot on ‘the xviii. Day of December, in the middest of the fiery flames, yelded his soule into the hands of the almighty God, and full like a lambe gaue vp his breath his body being consumed into ashes’.   Rowland Taylor, who had a lit fagot thrown at his head at the beginning of his burning held up:    

‘both hys handes, called vpon God, and sayd: Mercifull father of heaven, for Iesus Christ my Saviours sake, receiue my soule into thy hands.  So stood he still without either crying or moving, with his handes folded together, till Soice with an Halberd stroke him on the head that the braynes fell out, and the dead corpes fell downe into the fire.’

Then there was the burning of John Hooper, former Bishop of Worcester and Gloucester which did not go as planned.  The first fire did not catch and when ‘a few dry fagottes were brought, and a new fire kindeled’ only his ‘neather partes’ were singed.  Eventually, after a third fire was lit:

‘he prayed with somewhat a loude voice: Lorde Iesu haue mercy vppon me: Lorde Iesu haue mercy vppon mee: Lorde Iesus receiue my spirite […] when he was blacke in the mouth, and his tongue swolne, that he coulde no speake, yet hys lippes went till they were shronke to the gummes: and he knocked his breast with his hands, vntill one of his armes fell off, and then knocked still with the other, what time the fat, water, and bloud dropped out at his fingers ends, vntill by renuing of the fire, his strength was gone’ 

These were all clergymen but many ordinary people also suffered such as Elizabeth Cooper, a Pewters wife in Norwich, who was:

‘…at the stake with Simon Miller to be burnt, when the fire came vnto her, she a little shronke thereat, with a voice crying once, ha.  When the sayd Simon Miller hearde the same, he put his hand behind him towarde her, and willed her to bee strong, and of good cheare: For good sister (said he) we shall haue a ioyfull and a sweete supper.  Whereat she being, as it seemed thereby strengthened, stoode as still and as quiet as one moste glad to finish that good worke whiche before most happily shee had begonne.  So in fine she ended her life with her companion ioyfully, committing her soule into the hands of almighty God’.

In many cases multiple burnings took place at the same time.  At Stratford-le-Bow thirteen were burnt at the stake in one fire.  At Smithfield in London Thomas Loseby, Henry Ramsey, Thomas Thyrtell, Margaret Hyde, and Agnes Stanley ended their lives in one fire, whilst at Canterbury ten martyrs were put to the flame by Thornton, Bishop of Dover and Nicholas Harpsfield, Archdeacon of Canterbury.

One particularly abhorrent burning occurred (as Foxe tells it) at Guernsey involving a woman and her two daughters:

‘At the middle post was the mother, the eldest daughter on the right hande, the youngest on the other.  They were first strangled, but the Rope brake before they were dead, and so the poore women fell in the fire.  Perrotine, who was then great with childe, did fall on her side, where happened a ruefull sight, not onely to the eyes of all that there stood, but also to the eares of all true harted Christians, that shall read this historye: For as the belly of the woman brast a sonder by vehemency of the flame, the infant being a fayre man childe, fel into the fire’.

Foxe focused on those who had stayed in England to face the wrath of Mary’s government.  It was important for him and for those who supported his work that the martyrs were memorialised whilst Roman Catholics (for they blamed the burnings not just on Mary’s government but upon the whole Roman church) were vilified and revealed as a foreign enemy to Elizabeth’s England.  That picture of English reformation survives to this day and its effects continue to ebb below the surface of British society.  But it is not the whole picture and indeed historians and the public at large still grapple with the legacy of propaganda left by Elizabethan scholars, playwrights, politicians and clergymen.  

There are numerous more examples many of which were graphic in both their portrayal of the burning itself and in the process leading to the burning.  Historians have, in ever greater detail, examined many of these accounts and formed arguments around them.  In particular, there is a current interest in comparing Foxe’s narrative to other sources – such as official documents – to check his authenticity.  However, few have looked at alternative contemporary accounts in works of history such as Holinshed and Stow.  It is therefore interesting to compare Foxe’s account of such events to that given in other near contemporary chronicles.